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Carlisle should ditch its “dated Border City slogan”, say leading politicians.

Joe Hendry

New city council leader Joe Hendry says it’s time for a change of name as the tag sounds insular and old-fashioned.

Instead, he wants Carlisle to be more open and project itself as a modern, global city.

Dr Hendry made his suggestion as he opened yesterday’s Superfast Carlisle conference which was attended by more than 100 delegates at Carlisle College.

He said: “Carlisle styles itself as the ‘Border ‘City’, but I think it’s time we left that behind us because it implies defensiveness, castles, city walls, keeping people out – indeed keeping ourselves safe inside.

“The world is not like that any more. We live in a global society.”

Carlisle should make the most of what the college and the university has to offer and “rebrand itself in a more positive, outlooking way as a Knowledge City,” he added.

Labour’s new council leader received some unlikely backing from Conservative MP John Stevenson who was attending the conference.

“I agree with him. The ‘Border City’ has had its day. There was nothing wrong with it when it was introduced, but it’s time it changed and we look for a different label.

“I like ‘Discover Carlisle’, which speaks to tourists and businesses that could see the city as somewhere to base themselves,” he said.

She said: “We are a border city but if it has negative connotation then we need to examine that.

“The idea of being a ‘knowledge city’ is one I completely and utterly support. We have the university, a thriving college and we’ve seen huge investment in educational facilities in recent years. We need to capitalise on that.”

Early reaction from the tourism sector is supportive of ditching the ‘Border City’ tag but not necessarily with replacing it with something else.

Yvette Rogers has run Langleigh Guest House in Howard Place, Carlisle, for 11 years.

She said: “We do have to change if we want to bring more people into Carlisle. I’m not sure we need a slogan at all. Carlisle should stand on its own merits.”

Have your say

Brilliant comment Jonny.

Posted by Craig on
27 June 2012 at 10:48

Anybody else feel we're being softened up to take a lot of immigrants? Words like diversity, inclusion, enrichment etc only mean one thing - more immigration. Carlisle can never be a Manchester or a Newcastle because it's just not big enough, but it could be a Burnley, Oldham or Rochdale. Have any of the authors of these posts been to Manchester (Longsite, Hulme) recently? Or the mill towns? They are packed to the rafters and that's what's going to happen to Carlisle. Few jobs, few houses, few school places, lots of incommers. Not good.